Thursday, September 17, 2009

John Swinney needs to adopt tough choices to steady the ship then rebuild


Dear All

It is nearly that time of the year when the Scottish Government has a budget to divvy up the cash for next year.

One small problem, there isn’t a lot to go round as the Labour Government in Westminister took an axe to the SNP Government’s block grant.

This is real New Labour in action.

What is certain is that there may be cuts but it is up to John Swinney to juggle the books so the impact isn’t as hard.

Finance Secretary John Swinney obviously wants to protect public services and boost the economy, but he has to ask is it worth extending the council tax freeze into a third year.

I think it may be not; sometimes hard choices have to be made and explained.

Rival parties keen to be popular have said the SNP must protect jobs.

That is a no brainer but they cite spending money on an independence referendum as a waste of money. If Scotland had better financial levers things won’t be as bad but under the current system, they are hamstrung.

Labour finance spokesman Andy Kerr insisted the level of cash allocated to Scotland by the Treasury would actually rise by about £600m.

Perhaps Mr. Kerr isn’t suited to the role as a Finance Minister as he obviously isn’t keeping up with current events.

The Labour Party; his party in Westminster is cutting the Scottish budget.

With unemployment rising Mr Kerr called for a "budget on jobs".

This shows how out of touch he is, there is no point employing someone just for the sake of it; they had to provide value to the economy.

He added;

"Scottish Labour will judge the SNP's budget on the number of jobs it supports or creates, how it allows us to come through the recession in a stronger position and how it protects front line services."

As if anyone cared what they think; these are the people who failed to regulate the banks causing the misery in the first place.

New Labour helped the greedy bankers destroy the system because they are greed orientated.

The Conservatives' in Derek Brownlee said the SNP had to spend taxpayers' cash wisely.

Duh!

Some tout Brownlee as a future leader of the Tories, God knows why?

What the Scottish Government needs to do is to strip out the quangos as a matter of urgency and a starter for ten.

Another idea is that co-ordination is needed to easy the burden on the NHS by better management for such issues as the growing obesity problem.

Public buildings such as schools etc should used by other organisations at night to generate cash, Colleges and Universities should follow suit as well.

Tough choices for John Swinney and the SNP Government but they can expect nothing from the other parties except criticism for doing the right thing.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

No comments:

Post a Comment